I think that’s a great idea. The first player to come out in a major U.S. sport will get so much media attention. If four players come out at the same time, they can share some of the backlash, and it won’t be nearly as much of a distraction for the individual teams.
I do not envy them their position and I look forward to a society where no one comes out of the closet because there will be no closet to come out of in the first place.
I’m hoping that at least one of them is a superstar, top-of-the-game player. “You throw like a faggot” will cease being a meaningful insult if that means being compared to someone like Peyton Manning!
This is 2013 correct? Anyone really care if a ball player is gay? If he is a great athlete thats all that matters. What he does off the field is his business.
Didn’t Tom Brady leave one supermodel girlfriend when she was pregnant with her son to go marry another supermodel? I guess nothing is impossible, but he’s really going the extra mile if he’s faking his heterosexuality.
(or maybe I’m being wooshed).
My take is in the region of the US where football is like religion this would be a big honkin’ deal. I think many fans would have a difficult time processing it… “Huh? but, wait, that’s not possible, is it? He’s in the NFL, for God’s sake!”
Not even close. He left a hot actress while she was pregnant to go marry a supermodel. Big difference.
I hate to come to his defense but from what I remember they both said they found out she was pregnant after they broke up (Bridget Moynahan who is on Blue Bloods).
Looking at this OP about the Rutgers coach thing, I think that **Aceplace’s **views on the challenges that the gay community faces are not just because he’s not from the south.
From there:
If you can’t imagine that anti-gay slurs might hurt people’s feelings (particularly if they happen to be gay), then probably you’re also going to say clueless things like “This is 2013 correct? Anyone really care if a ball player is gay?”
Do I care personally? No. But let’s not act all naive and pretend everybody is totally accepting of gay people and always has been. Things have changed a lot in the last decade or so and let’s not forget what things were like before that- and how they still are in some places. There are still zero openly gay active athletes in North American pro sports and that’s not an accident. If that barrier falls, it’ll be a cool thing and another sign of progress.
If nobody cared, then somebody would have come out of the closet long ago. An openly gay NFL player will be a big deal and there will be negative publicity.
I’ve always assumed the first gay player scenario would occur one of two ways. Either a player would announce he was gay as he retired or a player would pre-emptively announce he was gay because he was about to be exposed anyway.
Navratilova was a trailblazer, but these days nobody is really surprised by lesbians in women’s sports. I can’t think of an openly gay man in professional tennis or golf, nevermind football or basketball.
And I’m pretty sure a gay man has been married before. A male friend of mine has slept with a whole host of married men. Not saying he is a hero. Just saying.